Natural red hair is the rarest hair color in the world. A mere one to two percent of people are born with auburn hair. The prevalence is slightly higher in the northern and western fringes of Europe, especially the British Isles (mainly Ireland and Scotland), than in the rest of the world.
Auburn hair occurs most frequently in Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway and Sweden), Britain, Ireland, continental Germanic Europe (Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg), France and northern Iberia, Poland, and Russia.
To Dye or Not to Dye:
Auburn or Red hair is the world's rarest hair type, with only around two percent of people having true 'red' hair.
There's a little genetic tweak that makes the combination of red hair and blue eyes the rarest of them all. The same Nature study mentioned above found that another gene variant, HERC2, interacts with both the MC1R gene and the OCA2 gene—and it can shut off the redhead gene while expressing blue eyes and blonde hair.
We classify auburn as a deeper shade of red somewhere within the medium to dark brunette category. Auburn is often considered a “cool tone” because it has a slightly blue undertone to it.
"A red that's auburn with a balance of warm and cool will work for medium skin with both warm and cool undertones," says Freidman. She also explains that people with medium skin tones are lucky, as they have the widest range of red tones they can work with.
Red hair (also known as orange hair and ginger hair) is a hair color found in one to two percent of the human population, appearing with greater frequency (two to six percent) among people of Northern or Northwestern European ancestry and lesser frequency in other populations.
Most (natural) redheads will have brown eyes, followed by hazel or green shades.
When red hair follicles stop producing their gingerish pigment, the colour fades from red through a glorious spectrum of faded copper to rosy-blonde colours, through to silvery-white. It's a sight to be seen, giving an almost autumnal effect as your red hair moves into its 'silver fox' phase.
Having natural red hair is rare (like, two percent of the population rare), so coming across someone with natural strawberry blonde hair isn't common. While you may not be a natural-born redhead, your colorist can help you achieve your ideal strawberry blonde shade at the salon.
Redheads probably won't go grey. That's because the pigment just fades over time. So they will probably go blonde and even white, but not grey.
While all shades of red hair are stunning, auburn is a great option for anyone who's going red for the first time or simply wants a luxurious warmth to their hair regardless of the season. The red-brown hue is extremely versatile as it compliments all skin tones and is low maintenance — as far as red hair goes.
Since red hair is a recessive trait, the children of two redheaded parents will almost always be redheaded as well. In contrast, if only one parent is redheaded and the other has brown hair, there is a higher chance that the children will display the dominant trait and will have brown hair.
Redheads come in many different varieties, from bright red dyed hair to coppery auburn and strawberry blond. Many natural redheads have pale skin that burns easily in the sun and light-colored eyes. The word redhead has been used to mean someone with red hair since at least the 13th century.
Around 17 per cent of people have blue eyes, and when combined with 1-2 per cent having red hair, the odds of having both traits are around 0.17 per cent. That's 13 million people, out of the 7.6 billion on Earth.
No but seriously, I for one find this fact very cool. Most redheads have green and hazel eyes, and it's estimated that less than one million people in the world have the rarest combination.
Redheads Look Older Than They Are
Some evidence suggests redheaded adults often appear older than their actual age. For example, one study published in 2016 in Current Biology found that adults who carry two copies of the MC1R gene variant are more likely to look two years older than other people their age.
REDHEADS are significantly less likely to age badly.
According to their findings, those who carry a variation of the MC1R gene responsible for red hair, look around two years younger than they actually are.
Why do people sometimes appear to be younger than others of the same age? The culprit turns out to be an innocent-sounding gene, MC1R, responsible for producing, among other things, locks of fetching red hair as well as pale skin, researchers have discovered.
Most redheads have pink undertones in the skin which can appear ruddy.
The results showed the average IQ of blonde-haired women was 103.2, 102.7 for brown hair, 101.2 for red hair and 100.5 for black hair. However, the differences were so small as to be unlikely to represent a real difference.
The DNA for blonde or red hair is not as strong as brown. In order to have blonde hair, both of your alleles need to be blonde. The same is true for red hair.
Research indicates that redheads have higher thresholds for pain and need less vitamin D than the rest of us thanks to the MC1R gene mutation, which gives their hair its hue.
Throughout history, artists from Sandro Botticelli to Dante Gabriel Rossetti have mined the potent symbolism of red hair to alternately suggest promiscuity, sensuality, deviousness, and—above all—otherness for centuries. Redheads are rare, but why should that make them particularly beguiling or innately prurient?